Early Reviews for "Innocent Spouse"

KIRKUS REVIEWS

INNOCENT SPOUSE
A Memoir
Author: Joynt, Carol Ross

Review Date: April 1, 2011
Publisher:Crown
Pages: 288
Publication Date: May 10, 2011
Category: Nonfiction
Classification: Biography

Following her loving husband’s unexpected death, TV producer Joynt came face-to-face with her mate’s secret life. The fallout decimated her once comfortable life, flinging her into a decade of financial and emotional misery.

The author fell deeply in love with Howard Joynt in 1977. As the night assignment editor for the NBC News Washington, D.C., Bureau, she had a successful career, and Howard was a rich, charming, sophisticated restaurateur. They soon married, Joynt abandoned her career and the couple retreated to a large estate in the Virginia countryside. Unknown to the author, her husband possessed a dark side that soon emerged. Chronic depression fueled his rages, followed by physical abuse. After much grief, they entered counseling, salvaging their marriage. Ten years into their marriage, they moved back to Washington, restarting their professional lives. Joynt became a producer for Nightwatch; her husband shouldered the day-to-day management of his legendary restaurant, Nathans. For the next decade, their lives were grand. But in 1997, a month after a sailing vacation to the Caribbean, Joynt’s husband died, and the author’s comfortable life disintegrated. Due to her husband’s fraudulent financial dealings, Joynt discovered she now owed the IRS $3 million in back taxes. “The reality he left us was not enchanting and not safe, but dangerous and frightening,” she writes. The author recounts the misery of the next ten years dealing with the messy details of her long battle with the IRS; her valiant attempts to turn Nathans into a moneymaking enterprise; her constant struggle to retain her demanding job as a producer with Larry King Live; and the joy of raising her son.

Excellent recounting of the author’s lost decade, during which she rebuilt her life, became self-sufficient and found peace following her husband’s deceit.

THE AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION'S "BOOKLIST"

INNOCENT SPOUSE
JOYNT, CAROL ROSS (AUTHOR)
MAY 2011, 288 P, hardcover $25.00

It sounds like fodder for a TV movie: after her husband's death, Joynt discovers that the successful restaurant owner with whom she had shared her life was under federal investigation for tax fraud--and that, as the surviving spouse, she is now on the hook for $3 million, not to mention possible prosecution. But this is no TV movie. It actually happened; Joynt, a television-news producer, had her life turned upside down in the space of a few weeks and spent the next decade and more trying to right heerself. Her account of that experience is engagingly written and, it seems, very honest. there are moments of high drama, of raw emotion, of nearly crippling grief and confusion (although, it should be noted, Joynt never asks for pity, never presents herself as helpless or hopeless). Slowly and with numerous setbacks, Joynt put her professional and personal lives back together, finding happiness where she least expects it. Very readable and frequently inspiring. --David Pitt 

PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY

Innocent Spouse: A Memoir

Carol Ross Joynt . Crown, $25 (288p) ISBN 978-0-307-59209-5

When a spouse dies, the one left behind usually is left to face the unknown, and in Joynt’s case "the unknown" included over three million dollars owed to the IRS, mortgages on properties she had thought they owned outright, and a Washington, D.C., restaurant, Nathan’s, that was a landmark to locals but a sinking money pit to the new widow. After her husband, Howard, died in 1997, Joynt struggled to keep her head above water, caring for their five-year-old son, continuing her career in journalism (she hosts the Q&A Cafe luncheon in D.C.), and taking on her new role as owner of Nathan’s while maintaining her "innocent spouse" status in her legal battle against the IRS. While Joynt’s case may be extreme and will most appeal to fans of Nathan’s restaurant, it is an honest telling of a woman betrayed by her husband whom she had loved and her determination to protect herself and her son. (May)